


you're alive, you survived, what's the prize?

by scarsimp



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Genre: Gen, Link was a kid!!!, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:00:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22553665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarsimp/pseuds/scarsimp
Summary: Link sits and contemplates. The world is peaceful again, dredges of twilight banished away in the waning sun. He wonders if he should feel bad for missing the muted colors of that dark, dark world.
Relationships: Link/Shad (Legend of Zelda), implied
Kudos: 23





	you're alive, you survived, what's the prize?

**Author's Note:**

> Bruh link deserved so much fucking better than he got

Link sits and contemplates. The world is peaceful again, dredges of twilight banished away in the waning sun. He wonders if he should feel bad for missing the muted colors of that dark, dark world. He can't bring himself to feel bad over what felt like home. The blue is still nice, and the sun is warm against his freckled face. It's weather his friends would like- Shad, certainly. He'd be pointing out the clouds in a heartbeat. 

Link sits quietly, much as he does everything in his life. Quiet, unassuming, he lets his actions speak all the words his mouth fails to repeat. He thinks his words were stolen at some point in his short life, snatched away like the half zora's in those strange folktales. He sits and appreciates the sun glinting off the small pond in town, and doesn't acknowledge that his words left shortly after he left, on that first deadly trek to Hyrule.

Shifting to lay down, he stretches idly and hums when he feels his spine pop in complaint. A few too many hits from a lizalfos and his back was never the same, but that was the past and the past was nothing to dwell over. What's done is done and it matters little that his wrists go numb from too heavy metal, or that incorrectly set bones will always ache a deep way when rain finally hits Ordon. 

Broken bones can't be unbroken, and shaded memories can't be banished, but he'll try anyway to ignore them both. Fireflies glow in his lungs and his mind but he pushes them away, too focused -trying to be too focused- on the scenery around him. Link shouldn't have missed it, but somehow the missing pieces are all too obvious in the growing dusk. 

Link can't quite place what's missing, just that the scenery is… empty. The trees are too still, the grass not long enough to billow like waves. The pond barely ripples when small fish dart to the top, and Link wonders faintly if he is going insane. A blink and the thought fades, Link sighing and sitting back up; resting his head on his knees and ignoring the twinge of his bad shoulder. ~~He doesn't like to think on when he got the bad shoulder, all too black armor and hair red as blood, topaz glinting like daggers.~~ Link tries not to think on a lot of things, nowadays. 

Another sigh, this one contrite. Blue eyes gaze along the dry, packed dirt he sat on and near, watching vaguely as a small ant journeyed back to its home. Link swallows and twiddles thumbs, suddenly impatient with the slow and sleepy pace of the town. Everything was too small, too lazy, Link couldn't understand it anymore. ~~Link wishes to the Goddesses that cursed him that he still understood.~~

Another look around and he still doesn't know what's missing, until he does. The grass is fresh, no blood or sweat staining it from soldiers. ~~Link never knew he'd be a soldier this young.~~ Everything is too clean, stark in its complacency. He hates that he wants the adrenaline back, wishes he was happy with boring and lazy and dull. He supposes he wishes for a lot of things. Too many for Hylia to grant, at the least. 

Not like she granted any of his wishes, because that was giving her too much credit. Link reflects back to the night spent in the Royal Cathedral, bent over and ignoring the screaming of his flesh. He knelt and cried and wished for everything to end. For the war to end. So afraid of the world, afraid of Ganondorf, of Zelda, of Midna. The hero lost his courage, and Hylia's statue stood and smiled. ~~Link wants to smile like he used to.~~


End file.
